Skies Over Grimerica: Night Skies and Star Myths for December, 2017

I had the opportunity to visit with Darren and Graham for another installment of "Skies Over Grimerica," this time focusing on the stars and heavenly cycles we can observe during the month of December (2017).

During this month's segment, we talked about the best nights for star-gazing in December, the best nights for viewing the Geminid meteor shower, the location of visible planets and why we see Mars and Jupiter in the east prior to sunrise this month, the spiritual meaning of the winter solstice (which, for viewers in the northern hemisphere, corresponds to the December solstice later this month), some of the celestial aspects of the Christmas story as recorded in the gospel accounts, and importance that the world's ancient myths ascribed to the "great turning point" of the winter solstice.

I hope that this segment will help you to go out and enjoy some of the beautiful winter stars for yourself, if at all possible.

Apologies if some of the planetarium images are a little small -- for best results, I recommend watching the video on a laptop or desktop or even larger screen. However, the main thing is to get out to the "infinitely large screen" of the heavens themselves, if it is possible for you to do so.

Thanks again to Graham and Darren for graciously inviting me back to the famous Igloo. I look forward to future installments of the "Skies Over Grimerica" feature.

You can also check out Grimerica's new Aeronautical and Space Administration, which is attempting to launch cameras to an altitude of 40 kilometers or 25 miles (whichever is higher and more impressive) in order to try to observe the curvature of the earth -- and sign up to help fund and be part of this historic adventure yourself, if you are able to contribute to the effort in any way.

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For those wishing to read further about some of the concepts discussed in this month's episode, here are a few links to previous posts: